Cary Fowler, Special Envoy for Global Food Security, and Dina Esposito, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Global Food Crisis Coordinator, discussed the US strategy for addressing the global food security crisis and their ongoing visit to Malawi and Zambia at a digital press briefing on January 19.
“We’ve recently supported a new project which will be operating in a number of countries, including Zambia and Malawi, that will be coordinated by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, and by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture,” said Fowler.
“They’ll be establishing innovation hubs where they’ll bring together the best and most appropriate technologies and information to help small-scale farmers with a whole variety of issues that they confront. This will give the farmers access, for example in Zambia, to drought-tolerant maize, which they’re really clamoring for. This is maize which, on a year-in and year-out basis, on average will yield about 30 percent more, rotated with legumes, which provide protein and also enrich the soil and reduce the need for fertilizer. But also other technologies and assistance in establishing markets for those products and lengthening out the value chain so that farmers are not just – and small businesses are not just dealing with raw commodities but are taking those commodities and making something more valuable and more useful to a broader population.”
Read the original article: Digital Press Briefing with U.S. Special Envoy for Global Food Security Dr. Cary Fowler, and USAID Global Food Crisis Coordinator Dina Esposito
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